In this paragraph Anna Quindlen uses a simile. Windows look like brown-red eyes, when the rooms are lit inside the house. It is an effective method, which creates an illusion of the house being alive. It makes readers think that the pictures of the house are as important as the pictures of family, friends, dogs and cats. Homeless can’t feel its warmth and security, as if those brown-red eyes guard the house from troubles. They have nothing except memories, embodied in those pictures of houses. In such a way the author attempts to arouse compassion to people, who are deprived of home.

2.
Anna Quindlen writes about the true meaning of home. One’s heart is where he lives, with all those dumb unimportant and quite ordinary things in it. Using this definition, the author attempts to show people’s loyalty to their true homes, which mean stability and protection for them. The author also asserts that people won’t choose another place to live in, and they won’t be compromised not for a hot shower. They would rather prefer to live in the streets. This definition expresses the deep meaning of home through simile with heart, just like our body is a home to our soul. This thesis induces readers to appreciate their true homes.

3.
Maxine Hong Kingston’s aunt was abandoned by her kinsmen, for she brought shame to the family by giving birth to a child out of wedlock. She was treated as if she had never been born. That is why her family made no attempts to protect her from outrageous villagers, and didn’t even lock the doors against them. If to make the rhetorical analysis, the story is narrated not only by Maxine Hong Kingston, but also by her mother, and it creates an image of sharing different experiences and learning from one another. Maxine Hong Kingston was alerted by her mother not to stand up against society. In larger context this abstract shows connection between Chinese and American characteristic features. The family didn’t protect the woman, as they decided not to rise in revolt against the will of society. Instead they left front and back doors open to let villagers do what they intended to do.

4.
In this paragraph the author reveals the reality of immigrant life in China. The author gives an opportunity to ponder over the details of aunt’s acquaintance with her future offender, without making it clear how it happened in reality.

The author notifies that there were no strangers in the village, and it also bares relation to the whole country, because China used to be the nation of siblings, where kinsmen married each other. At an emotional level the text is supposed to arouse compassion to the aunt, as she had no support from her family. The author’s assertion that she always did, what she was said, shows weakness of immigrant women and supremacy of men in China.

5.
The implied author of this passage is the aunt herself. These are the memories of that ghost which haunted Maxine Hong Kingston until she began writing about her aunt.

This was her way to give substance to the ghost of her aunt (Vivian St. George, 2003).

Her power of imagination became a bridge between past and present, like a hyphen between Chinese and American.

The paragraph where her aunt worked at herself in the mirror shows that she was also guilty in what happened to her, because all married women customarily wore a short hair-cut or a tight bun. But her aunt’s desire to make her appearance more attractive indicates her individuality and longing for a lover, which certainly caused gossip among villagers. In this way the author angers the readers with the woman’s frivolity.